Steam vs Sail

Although I painted them a few weeks ago I hadn't actually had my new steam-ships for Galleys & Galleons on the table yet, so yesterday I set up a game with them.

In keeping with traditional fantasy I designated them as a Dwarf fleet. I used four ships as follows:

Small Ironclads - Grey Crag and Bloodaxe - Q3 C2 - Gun Turrets, Ironclad, Steam Engine
Medium Ironclad - Kozah's Revenge - Q3 C3 - Gun Turrets, Ironclad, Steam Engine
Large Ironclad - Sea Cleaver - Q3 C4 - Heavy Bow Chasers, Ironclad, Steam Engine

Against them I used some galleons, representing the fleet of well-known HOTT army the Dukedom of Ceidonia. They were:

Fast Galleons - Serlo's Blessing and Great Tom - Q3 C3 - Chaser Guns, Galleon Rigged, Razee
Large Galleon - Duke Otto - Q3 C4 - Chaser Guns, Galleon Rigged, High Castles, Trained Gun Crews
Armoured Galleon - Aegis - Q3 C4 - Chaser Guns, High Castles, Ironclad, Square Rigged

I set up a straight fight. Here it is a few turns in - the Ceidonians at the top have formed a ragged line, whilst the Dwarves have sent their largest ships into action and are trying to work the smaller vessels into the Ceidonian rear.

Kozah's Revenge and Sea Cleaver advance on the Ceidonian line. The Ceidonins are in the order Serlo's Blessing, Great Tom, Duke Otto and Aegis bringing up the rear.

Serlo's Blessing opened fire on Kozah's Revenge, but couldn't get past the armour.

The Dwarves returned fire, but only did superficial damage.

The Dwarven ships passed down the Ceidonian line. Great Tom opened fire and managed to damage Kozah's Revenge.

The mighty Sea Cleaver opened fire as well, but missed the Ceidonian galleon.

The one spectator was unimpressed.

The Ceidonians turned into the wind so they could come about and work north to engage the Dwarves. But Aegis had got cut off through having to turn to avoid the advancing ironclads. Meanwhile Grey Crag and Bloodaxe had finally worked their way around the island.

Kozah's Revenge turned and opened fire on the Aegis, but failed to penetrate its armour.

A second shot did inflict some damage.

Aegis turned and returned fire, and the two ships steadily shot at each other for a while. Both took hits and Kozah's Revenge took engine damage as well.

The smaller ironclads were now in the fight - Grey Crag took a shot at Great Tom as it sped past.

Kozah's Revenge struck!

The Ceidonians were turning back into the action whilst the Dwarves attempted to overwhelm Aegis with numbers

The armoured galleon was raked by both Bloodaxe and Sea Cleaver, but still kept fighting.

The Dwarves now had a problem; they had three moving ships in a very small space ...

... A collision was inevitable. Both Bloodaxe and Sea Cleaver were damaged.

Bloodaxe was fired on by Serlo's Blessing and caught fire. The crew quickly extinguished the blaze, but it still caused some damage.

Sea Cleaver continued to fire on Aegis, which resolutely refused to strike.

Serlo's Blessing engaged Sea Cleaver on the other side as Aegis turned and kept firing.

Badly damaged, Sea Cleaver sank

At that point I gave the victory to the Ceidonians - whilst Aegis was crippled, having fought off three Dwarven vessels, it was still fighting. None of the other Ceidonian ships had suffered any damage. Meanwhile the Dwarves only had Grey Crag in a fit state to fight, with Bloodaxe looking very shaky indeed. With only their two smallest ships left the Dwarves steamed for home.

Steamships are quite fun in Galleys & Galleons - they don't need actions to move, but do have to spend them to slow down, speed up or stop, so need a little bit of planning. The ironclad trait was prevalent in this game as well, and helped prevent some damage. However it doesn't stop criticals or a good die roll, as the Dwarves found out.